First: Kelham Vineyards. Oh. My. God. Back in September, shortly after we decided to make this journey up to wine country, a friend was up there and found himself at Kelham on the good word of several tasting room employees. He raved. I made an appointment, six weeks ahead of time. I warned we’d have the kids.
When we arrived it was pouring rain, so we sat inside. Kelham is a family winery, so Susan and Ron Kelham (mother and son) were working the room and pouring wine. Connor (my older son) even got to play with an old tractor set that belonged to the Kelham boys when they were kids. The first thing to notice is that while they’re pouring the current releases the vintages are much different than what you get just about anywhere else. First up was the 2006 Sauvignon Blanc. Partially barrel fermented, aged in the bottle for years and undoubtedly amongst some of the most delicious wines I’ve ever tasted! The only “young” wine they poured was the 2008 Chardonnay which they make only 140 cases of each year to drink on Thanksgiving. I would happily eat Thanksgiving dinner every day just to drink that wine!We tasted a few merlots and then came the cabernets, first a 2003. Quite good. Then they poured the 2001. I believe my exact words were “Holy crap!”. Probably one of the, if not the best wine EVER. Ron, and his brother Hamilton, happen to be the wine makers, and so do I take the opportunity to ask Ron an intelligent question? Nope! Like a crazed fan who finally meets her celebrity idol I say something like “How do you make it so yummy?”. Luckily, my stupid question still received a great answer. He said the secret is using super high quality fruit and bottle age. Most of the greatest fine wines in the world aren’t released until they’ve aged for ten, maybe 15 years, he explained. Now I know why! My wine cabinet is going to get crowded as I wait for all my cabernets to age at least nine years before opening them! He also said they really strive to make wine in the old world style, rather than the fruit forward new world style.
Other highlights of Kelham: Picnic the cat who sat on my lap, the three other dogs that roamed the tasting room (and appeared one by one as a new wine was poured as if on purpose!), and two well behaved boys!
Another highlight was at the Elizabeth Spencer Harvest Event. This was what convinced us to make the trip in the first place. An event at one of our favorite wineries on our anniversary weekend? Sign us up!
Myles and I (we left the kids with a sitter!) had the pleasure of chatting with Matthew Rorick, the winemaker at Elizabeth Spencer as well as his own label, Forlorn Hope. He was a super friendly guy and answered my burning questions (such as why does ES not make any blends?). He was also looking quite dapper for a guy in the middle of crush! Myles claims that I really sounded like I knew what I was talking about when it came to wine, so maybe this education is getting me somewhere!
We also had the chance to talk with Elizabeth Pressler, one of the owners. She was fun to chat with and loved to hear our story about how we discovered the winery. Even more fun was seeing her again on Monday when we just couldn’t resist stopping by again with the kids after lunch at Rutherford Grill.
It's so fun to meet the people behind the wine. It's no coincidence that our favorite places are small and NOT owned by some corporation.
2 comments:
My family and I went to Kelham several years ago for a tasting. I remember that 1) the wine was 1) delicious and 2) expensive, and that the wife had a rock so big I thought I could have gone ice skating on it if I wanted to. Sound about right?
We've heard that Ron is married, but didn't see his wife that day. But, yes sounds right! The wine is so delicious and considering how long they hold it, I though the reds were quite reasonably priced. The whites were more expensive than I usually spend, but also tastier!
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